In offices having a large number of locked file cabinets, desks, appliances, or other units, an inordinate time is consumed each day in opening individual units. This is especially burdensome and inefficient where a single individual is responsible for many cabinets, desks, etc. It is thus desirable to provide a system which allows one person to quickly and easily unlock all or many of the locked units in an area, but it is also often required that other persons be allowed to open smaller subsets of the total number of units.
It is already known to employ electronic locks which respond to magnetically or electrically stored codes. With such technology, opening locks is accomplished by inserting or presenting a key which transmits a code or codes to a lock by touching the key to a lock receptor or by merely approaching the proximity of a lock. While this can relieve some of the burden of unlocking many individual units, much of the burden remains.